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THE TOWN OF THE 
BEAUTIFUL RIVER 



Class 




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Book C.T nfa 



GopightN . 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT 




Monotype of E. T. Hurley. 
By Irene Bishop Hurley. 



THE TOWN OF THE 
BEAUTIFUL RIVER 

¥ 

ETCHINGS BY 
E. T. ^URLEY 

TEXT BY 
E. R. KELLOGG 



U. P. James : Bookseller 

Cincinnati : Ohio 

mdccccxv 



■CsHU 



Copyright, 1915, by E. T. Hurley 



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QCI2SI9I5 



These pictures and these lines are a tribute to the 
city which has been called the Queen City of the West, 
the Beautiful City and, not least, the Contented City, — 
the flower of that valley called by the early French 
settlers La Belle Rivere which is only another version 
of the Indian name, Ohio. 

The pictures have been a labor of love through 
many years of study and are records made in fugitive 
hours taken from art work of another sort. 

Mr. Hurley, in time as methodically applied as that 
of any business man, has created those dream land- 
scapes for which Rookwood is best loved by many 
people. But his sense of the beauty of the actual 
scenes which lie about him in his native town— pecul- 
iarly rich and varied in material— has kept his tireless 
energies forever on the stretch to explore and to revisit 
them in all kinds of weather and to set down his 
impressions. 

In his house is a workshop subject to invasion by 
a particularly live small boy and to reconstruction by 
a wife as artistic as himself. Here, on high days and 
holidays and on what is left of working days, with 
appetite as keen as though he had not already feasted 
off of pencil and brushes galore he paints, he prints, 
he models, he contrives. His innumerable etchings of 
Cincinnati and the region near it are the most note- 
worthy output of his studio, but the whole tale would 
not be told if we made no mention of occasional freaks 
of creation as boyish as a kaleidoscope, — as exotic as 
a life sized elephant. 



ILLUSTRATIONS 



1. From Eden Park. & j* 

2. Kilgour's Woods. 

3. Dry Creek Valley. 

4. Old Orchard. 

5. The Stone Bridge. 

6. House on the Hill. 

7. The Great Highway. 

8. Shanty Boats. 

9. Moonlight on the Ohio. 

10. Marine Dry Docks. 

11. The Suspension Bridge. 

12. Canal, near Mohawk Bridge. 

13. The Boat House, Brighton. 

14. Canal near Five Corners, Cheapside. 

15. Mt. Adams, Night. 

16. Little Street. 

17. The Mission Cross. 

18. Good Friday Pilgrimage. 

19. The Art Museum. 

20. East Court Street. 

21. The Span. 

22. Old Gateway, Milton Street Hill. ^ ** 



23. 


The Toilers. 


24. 


Market Horses. 


25. 


Feeding Chickens. 


26. 


Beached. 


27. 


Fourth Street. 


28. 


A Bad Night. 


29. 


The Blizzard, Fountain Square. 


30. 


Eighth Street Spires. 



J* <J* 



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Beloved City, dowered with river and hill, 
Golden with sunshine, silvered with snow, 
Jewel of Nature in a gracious mood, 
Strong outpost in the early wilderness, 
Dear refuge of the wanderer on our shores, 
Cross roads of North and South, of East and West 
How do thy children love thee ! 




Plate 1 



What wonder that thy solemn woodlands dim, 
Whispering sheltered calm and breathing peace, 
Halted the footsteps of the pioneer ! 




Plate 2 



What wonder that within the deep ravines 
Along those streams that call the sunshine down 
Through flickering boughs to gild their fruitful banks, 
Safe there among the birds all jubilant 
The pioneer turned happy husbandman. 




Plate 3 



Rejoice, O hills, rich in your radiant crops 

Of ruddy fruit and fields of ripening grain : 

Caught in the rhythm of the summer winds 

You dance through sparkling seas of summer sun. 

And 0, ye brooding orchards, murmur still 

The story of that solitary soul, — 

That wanderer, with a gentle madness touched 

Who years gone by laid your first seeds in earth 

And nurtured your young growth. 




Plate 4 



While all the land rejoices and gives thanks 
Shall we forget to bless the patient hands 
Whose untaught labor learned to build the broad 
And sure foundation which we rest upon ? 




Plate 5 



O, happy householder, embowered in trees 
For whom the valley opens like a scroll 
Of shining beauty and for whom the mesh 
Of highways like a fine strong net flung wide 
Draws the world daily to your very doors ; 
Will you forget those homeless ones who blazed 
Into the trackless wilderness a trail, 
Stumbling ahead of your well guarded feet ? 






? -- 4 : 











Plate 6 



Yet, for those wanderers too the great highway 
Which still we tread stretched on into the west 
Between the beckoning hills,— then, as today! 



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Hail, mighty stream ! What measures have you trod 

Of solemn awe, of pastoral delight, 

What stately manors have you hailed afar, 

What human drift cradled upon your heart 

Has heard you crooning softly in the night, 

Ere to that diapason of great sound, 

That orchestra of wide contrasting tones — 

The City's voice, your lyric note you joined! 




Plate 8 



Sing still for us the visions that were yours 
In solitude : the vaporous forms and tints 
That still elude us yet still draw us on 
Like teasing melodies half heard, yet sweet- 
How heavenly sweet ! 




Plate 9 



Not dreams alone but rugged harmonies 
Intone, — exultant chords of daily toil, 
Man beside man with elemental force 
Contending, that a giant tool be forged. 




Plate 10 



So that our hearts shall leap and sing aloud 
To some high triumph as to martial strains. 




Plate 11 



O, mighty river, you it was who taught 

Our fathers, through the twisted streets to lead 

This docile sister stream which silently 

Bore on its patient breast the city's load, 




Plate 12 



Or rippled to its merry making bands ; 




Plate 13 



Which shared its dim mysterious hidden life 
Or dreamed beside its nodding industries. 




Plate 14 



Now turn we to the heights ; first to that one 
Where all the little houses tiptoe crowd 
To gaze upon the city veiled in smoke 
Rearing aloft her crown of radiant hills, 
Spangled at night with myriad twinkling lamps, 
The tawny river coiled about her feet. 




Plate 15 



Quaint little streets that clamber in and out, 
What frolics have you sheltered and, at eve, 
What sacred thoughts of happy homecoming ! 




'UlfSiPT-'.r 






1 








Plate 16 



What weary wayfarers,— O, little shrine- 
Have taken heart again beside the calm 
Of your most precious grief ! 




Plate 17 



And you, steep thoroughfare of steps devout, 

What crowding hosts have gone your way toward heaven ! 




Plate 18 



How many vowed anew their gift to joy 
Here, where the lovers of the earth have met 
To tell the world how beautiful she is ! 




Plate 19 



City, thy gates are full of swift surprise ; 




Plate 20 



Of sturdy monuments of use and power ; 







i 



Plate 21 



Of quaint suggestion of a time gone by ; 




Plate 22 



Of immemorial toil ; 



Of dear repose ; 




Plate 24 



Of all the common lot of brimming life 
That we may see and feel and share at will. 




Plate 25 



Fresh life's amid the city's squalid want- 
Growing toward the light, 




Plate 26 



And still amid the tangle and the din 
And burden of the daily fight for bread 
The mighty heart of man beats on and on 
Pulsing with pity and with sacrifice. 



0, city of my birth and of my heart 

Whether the storm and night o'ershadow thee, 




Plate 28 



Or sunshine, or the mantle of the snow 

Dower thee with fresh charm and splendors new, 




Plate 29 



Still let me know thine ever-varied forms 
Of quaint and pure delight ! Still let me feel 
The folk about me, each in his own way, 
Like our close clustered towers of many creeds 
That from the turmoil lift their spires aloft, 
Yearning toward the light — seeking the sky! 




Plate 30 



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